


First Night of Freedom

by BatSnake



Series: Fugitive 777 [2]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Hurt, Just a dad reliving separation trauma, it's just hurt, mild violence???, traumatic flashback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 10:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20445446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatSnake/pseuds/BatSnake
Summary: Prisoner 777's first night reunited with his children is haunted by traumatic memories of their separation.





	First Night of Freedom

It was inevitable that one of the human child's family would see him. 777 didn't think it would happen so quickly.  
He leaned up against the garage door, stunned at the awkward transpiration that happened between him and the young human female.  
He finished off the cheese stick he had in his mouth and returned to the mattress he had been resting on. Two of his babies were dozing, wrapped in their gray blanket from their birthplace in the Vort prison.  
He laid the third he was carrying with them, then brought them all back into his lap, loosely laying the blanket over them.  
If it weren't for the cacophony of some kind of tiny Earth creature outside, 777 would have been chilled by deathly silence. Just hours ago, he was imprisoned.  
  
Worse still, he thought his children were gone. He thought they had dissolved from existence before his eyes.  
The memory burned into his mind, on constant replay during his last moments in the prison.  
Their tiny screams, the bright glow of their tubed prison. He took a sharp breath, snapping himself from thinking of it.  
It didn't matter anymore. They were safe. They were in his arms. He was practically free. He wouldn't be separated from them again.  
Not after what Zim did.  
He pressed them close to his chest protectively.

It was happening again. Reliving the separation as he had on repeat, etched deep in his mind like a deep scar.   
He used to remember the death of Tallest Myuki that way - the cause of his imprisonment and enslavement. It was a mild inconvenience compared to...

_...When Zim entered his cell, joined by two taller Irken soldiers. _  
_"So! Prisoner 777!" He hunched low, arms behind his back. "You think your little brats are more important than aiding ME, the mighty Zim, in my conquest of Earth!"_  
_He'd walked in on 777 just finishing fixing his original prison uniform together; the babies were asleep after nursing - the last time before the human child reunited them. _  
_"Why do you think I'd--" 777 had started._  
_"It aaaall started with the glob beast that formed in my lab! 'Oh Zim, I can't help you! I'm in the medical ward!' and 'Here's your ice ray late, Zim! Sorry I couldn't get it to you before the glob grew 20 times its original size! I was too busy shoving my clones out of my body!' Zim derisively twitched his antennae. _  
_"They're...not clones, they're--" 777 started anxiously._  
_ And then it was 'This project is unfinished, I can't send it to yet!' 'I told you you shouldn't use that unfinished project, I told you it would turn your SIR Unit into a rampaging giant!'" _  
_ "I DID warn you about that! You didn't listen!" 777 retaliated. _  
_ "And whose fault was it for it being incomplete? You! Being too busy with your little belly leeches!" Zim pointed at the babies. _  
_"I was on schedule, Zim, you were being impatient!" 777 picked up the bundled babies in their blanket, clutching them defensively. _

He knew now what he planned. But those first moments, 777 feared worse.

_"Be silent! I saw the little one gnawing on that eight-bit wrench! You have disappointed me too many times since those things were born!" Zim hissed. "You've let me down!" _  
_ 777's only instinct was to back up into the cell's corner and huddle them away from the Irkens. But Zim only followed his path._  
_ "So now, I have to take drastic measures to make sure it doesn't happen again!" Zim grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him around and way from the corner. _  
_ In a flash of pure instinct, 777 bucked his legs, kicking one of them square into Zim's face. _  
  
_ As the Irken yelped in shock, 777 wrapped himself around the babies, who were awoken by the noise and motion. _  
_ "Daddy, wus' happenin?" One of them mumbled. 777 didn't even have time to respond, before one of the Irken soldiers arrived behind him, poking him hard in the back with an electric rod._  
_ 777 couldn't scream as the shock coursed through his body; he gasped as he lost breath. And then he couldn't move anything but a few fingers and his eyes._  
_ "Zim..." 777 choked. He found some movement returned in one shoulder, just as Zim pulled the middle child from his grasp._  
_ "Daddy!" It squealed, reaching out desperately. 777 weakly reached out when Zim snatched up the other two; all three started kicking up a fuss and protest. _  
_ "Knock out the little Vortians. I don't want them putting up a fuss on the way back to my base." Zim grumbled to the guards. _

_777 couldn't move his head; he could only hear two small shocks on top of one another - two sharp wails immediate after. Then a third shock and a howling scream. And nothing. _  
_ Only at that time did 777 move again, stretching out his limbs, struggling to push himself off the ground. He turned his head. _  
_ Zim had dropped the children into some kind of crate with a door at the front._  
_ "Why are you doing this!?" 777 could only find the strength to balance on his hands and knees._  
_ "I'm transferring you to Moo-Ping 10!" Zim pointed fiercely at him._  
_ "What?" 777 choked. _  
  
_ "YEEES, Moo-Ping 10! Where your attention will be completely undivided from serving me!" Zim flourished dramatically. He produced a projector from his PAK. "And if you DON'T comply..." He pulled a camera image the projector. _  
_ "I'll erase your children from the universe!" He cackled._  
_ "You wouldn't..." 777 choked._  
_ "It's made from Vortian matter dissolution technology!" Zim brought the image in closer onto an oversized button. "One press of a button. Poof." _

Poof, indeed. 

_"You're bluffing! It can't erase organic matter, it--" _  
_ "You sure you want to challenge that?" Zim sneered. He picked up the crate by a handle on the top. "I wouldn't."_  
_ "Get him out of here." He walked away._  
_ Suddenly, his entire tone and demeanor changed. _  
_ "See you later!" He waved cheerily, antennae perking up, back straightening out, his gait switching to broad, eager strides._  
_ The Irken Guards pound his wrists together in magnetized cuffs. They flanked him and grabbed him by the arms, and hauled him in the opposite direction from Zim. Carried backwards, 777 could see Zim round a corner, as other Vortians watched in horror. _  
_ The Vortian in the cell directly across from his clutched her own newborn fraternal twins, hand clasped to her mouth and tears gushing down her cheeks. _  
_ 777 couldn't even see his own children in the crate Zim. But he realized._  
  
_ He was still holding the blanket._

777 snapped himself alert when he felt one of the babies shove itself under his shirt.   
"'M cold!" It whined.   
He pulled his collar out to see what it was doing. Just nuzzling his chest and kneading its fingers in his fuzz.   
"Okay, sweetie. We'll get under some more blanket." He reached in and rubbed its head; even ran a little circle around its horn stump.   
"Daddy! Daddy, don't cry!" The biggest wailed, in the verge of tears itself.   
777 touched his cheek, finding it damp. He wiped his eyes.  
"Daddy's just happy to see you." He choked hoarsely. "Daddy missed you." He scooped the loose two closer and kissed each one between the eyes.  
"Missedyou..." Mumbled the one under his shirt.   
Gripping them all close, 777 got his hooves off the floor and laid back down on the bed, covering them over with the blanket the human gave him.   
"Bedtime now." He rubbed one behind the head with one hand, kissed another one more time, and laid his other hand over the little one tucked under his shirt. It was asleep now. The others were dozing off.  
The middle child sucked on 777's finger, gripping his hand softly until its head fell against his shoulder with a light sigh. The biggest was content to curl between 777's neck and shoulder where there as more space.   
  
In a few hours, they'd wake up hungry. Or needing the bathroom (777 figured out where it was before he looked in the fridge). But for now, for his own sleep.   
But had to keep bad memories at bay. This had to be a good night. This was not the time for bad memories. Nor the sleep for bad memories to warp into nightmares. 

**Author's Note:**

> A follow up to the Prison Break story. 
> 
> Gonna have to do something that doesn't go too overboard with Zim being chaotically evil, but...that kind of what he is???  
He put them in a hecking cat crate too.
> 
> I guess it does seem weird that the babies are nursing while they can talk. But my explanation is that Vortians can stand up and (attempt to) walk at birth and learn to talk a little bit after. But they still can't digest solid food or protect themselves from pathogens and stuff, so they still need to be fed from their parents. That and they only have one tooth.


End file.
